Lightning effect

Hey guys
I have 4 images here
1 cloud only and 3 clouds with lightning at different places
I'm trying to animate this image in a way where lightning appears randomly with no sequence or order (including flashing at the same place more than once)
I need each animation to consist of 2 or 3 frames than restore to original frame the one with no lightning.
I tried using a timer but somehow timers and animations don't go too well.

Comments

That's because you are doing ten frames a second with four frames and. 5 second timer. This will throw off what the last frame is. Go with 8 frames per second, this will assure you end on the last frame. You can always monitor the frame in 1.25 as it now has a frame playing variable for the animation behavior.

@Lost_Oasis_Games said:
That's because you are doing ten frames a second with four frames and. 5 second timer. This will throw off what the last frame is. Go with 8 frames per second, this will assure you end on the last frame. You can always monitor the frame in 1.25 as it now has a frame playing variable for the animation behavior.

It doesn't matter how many frames per second it doesn't work. I did a different approach using and additional attribute

If there are only three lightening images, and you want their playback order randomised . . .

With a range of three numbers you can arrange them in a 'circle' (using mod), randomly choose a starting number, and then proceed around the circle in a random direction - going through the remaining two values.

This will give you all possible random combination of three numbers (6).

@Lost_Oasis_Games said:
That's because you are doing ten frames a second with four frames and. 5 second timer. This will throw off what the last frame is. Go with 8 frames per second, this will assure you end on the last frame. You can always monitor the frame in 1.25 as it now has a frame playing variable for the animation behavior.

It doesn't matter how many frames per second it doesn't work. I did a different approach using and additional attribute

@Lost_Oasis_Games said:
All that picture needs is tony getting struck by the Lightning

Unfortunately Tony was done in very high-end propriety 3D VR software, to even try and composite him into jon's photorealistic storm scene would need a pretty high end machine linked to a 1400+ machine rendering farm.

@Socks , @jonmulcahy and @Lost_Oasis_Games Hey guys, I'm just curious... wouldn't it be better, more efficient, to separate the lightening strike from the background instead of animating such large images?

@PhilipCC said:@Socks , @jonmulcahy and @Lost_Oasis_Games Hey guys, I'm just curious... wouldn't it be better, more efficient, to separate the lightening strike from the background instead of animating such large images?

@PhilipCC said:@Socks , @jonmulcahy and @Lost_Oasis_Games Hey guys, I'm just curious... wouldn't it be better, more efficient, to separate the lightening strike from the background instead of animating such large images?

like @socks said, it would be more efficient. In my magnificent example I cut some corners